Casita Chronicles 2022 Winters journey
Dec 6 2022
Well, I did not get too far today. almost before I got out of town the Jeep engine quit like it had back in Nebraska. I got out and rebooted the computer and off I went. The same thing kept happening at various distances and speeds so I got out the diagnostic unit and emptied all the codes and headed out again. When it happened again I ran the diagnostic and one code came on crankshaft sensor intermittent. I headed for the next exit Sturgis Michigan. Long story short the auto parts store had one but not till tomorrow at 730AM. I checked all the pet friendly motels -I could use a shower, but they were all full. Back to the Legion family. Post 73 said come on over and plug in! They are a great bunch. The Legion hall is in the oldest building in town built in 1848? by the the first arrival in this part of the country. It looks like a southern mansion. Kiowa and I walked around town. The museum is in a beautiful old train station but not open. I picked up a couple of free books in front of the book store that seemed interesting. No shower tho.
Dec 7
woke up to another steely grey day, How do these people live like this? I walked down to the coffee shop with my computer about 1/2 mile. Nothing like a dark brew and a large cinnamon roll to get you going. I watched several U tubes on replacing the crankshaft sensor. Stopped in Walmart to buy a hydraulic jack ( I need one for the 3/4 ton truck) to lift the Jeep up a little farther to make it somewhat easier. When I got to the parts store the jeep had not had any trouble and was running great! I had emptied all the codes after the last diagnostic and after watching a U tube I found out the location of the sensor. I went thru and checked and made sure all connections were good and played with the wires. I decided to check and see if it was still throwing the code. Amazingly it was not. THE GAMBLE
I reflected on the process of installing the new unit in on the cold ground and not having done it before and limited tools. I had early on made the decision to keep us all together instead of unhooking and returning to the legion to do the work. The ole sarge decided to take a gamble. Go ahead and buy the part but continue on down the road on the backroads keeping the speed down to 50-60 and no cruise control. If it worked I would be that much closer to my destination where I could put it in then. If not, I could limp it in and put it on wherever. The tough spot would be Cleveland. The drive was uneventful and the Jeep never quit! It was almost sundown when I had to attack Cleveland in rush hour and any breakdown would be a disaster but Luallin Luck prevailed and I made it past Cleveland at dark to Painesville where I called the Legion who gave me directions which were pretty F’d up and I spent some time driving in the dark but finally found it after stopping and getting more directions. Whew, no electrical hook up or internet but safe and sound and less than 300 miles away from my beloved. and in the same time zone! I am bushed.
I thought a lot along the way about an issue that has always bothered me, The refusal of the U.S. government to properly take care of the dead still left on the field of battle. After the Civil War Congress created and allocated money for the National Cemetery system. It was a gruesome task to exhume all the graves from all the many conflicts of the Civil War and put them in the National Cemeteries. Most of course were unmarked with little records. If you go to these cemeteries a vast majority are notated UNKNOWN and given a number that directs which battle there were found at. Each Legion is supposed to be named after a WW1 soldier from the area that died in the conflict. I found myself looking at the picture of the young private whose name post 73 is named in Sturgis Mi. Killed in that wretched trench warfare his body had been exhumed and reburied 3 times before it finally came home. Along the way we stopped in a cemetery so Kiowa could run a bit. I came across a grave of a WW2 soldier who was never found but it reads buried in the Mountains of Germany. A few years back they discovered the remains of U.S. Soldiers on the Canadian side of the Border who had died in the War of 1812 and they were ceremoniously exhumed and brought home with military rites. There is only one war that we have left our honored soldiers on the field of battle with no effort to give them proper burial, that is the Western Indian wars. They are in unmarked mass graves or in the trenches they died in. Despite knowing where they are and me pestering the Government they claim they are on American soil and do not need to be properly buried in a national cemetery. I find this egregious and a product of political BS. It is a great dis service to these men who were serving their country in a conflict that today is politically incorrect to honor them. Very sad.
Driving at 55 mph made me think back to the 70’s and one of many knee jerk reactions that the government does without thinking. I liked Carter but changing the max speed limit to 55 requiring all those new signs, taking down the old and putting them up to reduce gas usage in the shortage of the 70’s was quite moronic and did not do a thing! Then there was taking them all down and putting the old ones up. I wonder what they did with all those signs? It does not hold a candle to the latest, the Covid fiasco. Shutting down the economy in the midst of one of the costliest, longest wars in our history and then writing checks to everyone far surpassing what most pay in taxes all for a flu virus that they had to massage the numbers to make people think it was a major threat to the country. An uneducated welfare populous electing con men and fools. Was that harsh?
sdasdona 